Given that v27.0 release is approaching viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13499 and v27 beta 3 is very usable, it was decided to jump directly into the v27 beta 3 for the first linux SSE build. With the exception of no SSE2 support, this build attempts to be identical to the mainstream beta 3 build. The target cpus for this build are...

Because this is not a mainstream build, it has to be installed manually. The installation is simple, and writes to one Pale Moon directory. Given a <destination_directory> and a <palemoon_tarball>, the steps for each new version are...

The first time Pale Moon is installed, you need to create a symlink to the executable. Popular destinations for installion are /opt, /usr/local, and your own home directory. /opt and /usr/local are useful for global installs. They can be run by all user accounts on the system. The global install requires root/sudo permissions, to write to /opt or /usr/local. Installing in your home directory can be done as a regular user. The installed program is only accessable by the one user.

***WARNING*** Be *VERY* careful with the "rm -rf" command. If you type in"rm /usr/local palemoon" instead of "rm /usr/local/palemoon", you will blow away the entire /usr/local/ directory as well as the local palemoon directory, which is not what you want to do.

Some install examples. They all assume you've already downloaded the tarball

* To your home directory, assuming you're currently there (done entirely as local user)

If you have a desktop environment that expects to find icons in /usr/share/icons/hicolor/ you can symlink icons from the installed pale Moon. This would only have to be done on the first install. See http://linux.palemoon.org/help/installation/ for an example. Note that symlinking into /usr/share/icons/hicolor/ requires root or sudo permisssion, even if Pale Moon is installed in your home directory. I don't know if this will work, but you can try symlinking the icons to $HOME/.local/share/icons/hicolor/ instead.

The linux SSE build is functionally identical to the mainstream linux build, except that it does not use the SSE2 instruction set "under the hood". This allows it to run on Pentium-3 and similar CPUs. The build is 32-bit-only, because that's all these CPUs can handle. See the first post in this thread for installation instructions and a full list of target CPUs.

The updates/changes are as listed in the announcement at viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14018 with one exception. As was the case with the former Atom builds, Developer Tools are NOT built in the SSE version. The target CPUs are generally 500 mhz single-core Pentium 3 and equivalants. These CPUs are significantly weaker than base-model 1 ghz dual-core Atoms found in netbooks, which also have a bigger instruction set. They are not going to be useable as develpment machines, and removing Developer Tools frees up a buit of memory.

Installation has to be done manually, as per the instructions in the first post in this thread.

I just downloaded the newly compiled SSE version (Palemoon 27) and it needs glibc 2.17. Disappointing.

Puppy 6 (Tahr or Slacko) wants 768MB memory. My older computers do not have that much and most do not even support that much.

Please could someone compile for glibc 2.11 or even 2.6? The SSE2 official compiled version works with Lucid (glibc 2.11).

My partner, who was unhappy with Opera and QtWeb (out of date) and Firefox (crashes, and also out of date), and whose favorite laptops (2005) are rather slow for Chromium, loves Palemoon. He was about to give up on linux for browsing on old computers (not that an old Mac does any better).

I have suggested that Puppy Linux 5.2.8.7 (Dec 16, 2016) update its glibc. There may be some reason it does not - greater memory usage?

At present none of the version 5 puppies has newer than glibc 2.11 and many users have no idea how to update libraries. You have to hunt online for a package.

Firefox (version 41, anyway) works with glibc 2.11 and SSE, but Firefox post-45 requires gtk3 and won't even work with Puppy 6.It would be delightful to have a Palemoon version that worked on Pentium III with glibc 2.11 (and gtk 2).

If there are security problems, why is the SSE2 version 26 compiled to work with glibc 2.11?

I found something about a serious bug in glibc 2.10 to 2.17, related to a buffer overflow, which can be patched. Also a GHOST bug in 2.17.

Puppy Linux 6 (Tahr) recently updated glibc (it is now 2.19). The Puppy 5 package manager has no glibc updates. I will ask if the latest Puppy Lucid 5.2.8.7 has patched glibc 2.11.

Please provide a less-than-perfectly-secure 2.11 version anyway that can be used in Puppy 5. It won't be any less secure than the official SSE2 version and will work with less RAM than Puppy 6 demands.

I thought to unpack .bz2 you need tar -jxvf not just -xvf (as for plain .tar).

I unpacked palemoon into /mnt/home/browsers/ and wrote a script 'pale' to access it in /usr/local/bin.

cd /mnt/home/browsers/palemoon./palemoon

That way I can use it from several versions of Puppy Linux, each in its own directory. Unlike Chromium-based browsers, it is easily run as root.

Puppy Linux forum gives instructions how to run a single program with a later library (in its own directory) using a script, and warns against updating glibc because it can easily break things. I asked where to find a patched glibc 2.11. If I find it, will you please compile for it?

sindi wrote:Puppy Linux forum gives instructions how to run a single program with a later library (in its own directory) using a script, and warns against updating glibc because it can easily break things. I asked where to find a patched glibc 2.11. If I find it, will you please compile for it?

I'll check with the developers about whether an official build is possible. If "patched" means that it has current security fixes backported to it that would help make a better case. In a worst case, I could do an unofficial build as per paragraph 13 of http://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml but i would have to handle support by myself.

To use a car analogy, if you take a car, and modify/replace the engine and suspension for drag racing, the dealer you bought the car from might not know how to maintain/fix your car. Similarly, the Pale Moon developers know what their code does in their builds. They can't be expected to know what somebody else's customized version does. And they're not getting paid.

"I'll check with the developers about whether an official build is possible. If "patched" means that it has current security fixes backported to it that would help make a better case. In a worst case, I could do an unofficial build as per paragraph 13 of http://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml but i would have to handle support by myself."

I have not found an updated 2.11 with security fixes. I have never compiled glibc and don't know how to patch it.

sindi wrote:The requirements for Palemoon in linux include GLibc2.17 but the official build works in lucid puppy with glibc 2.11.It also calls for libgtk 2.24 but lucid puppy probably has 2.20.

I checked with the developers. The mainline linux Pale Moon is still being built on CentOS 6, but they will be switching to CentOS 7 soon. Since I came on board relatively recently, I was told to start with CentOS 7 as the build platform, to avoid having to switch soon. CentOS 6 uses glibc 2.13, but apparently you can get away with 2.11.1, because it's close enough. CentOS 7, which I use for building Pale Moon, is a later release and uses later versions of glibc, gtk, etc.

sindi wrote:Do you know of any reason why the latest lucid puppy should not use the updated libraries? Are they much larger

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (the base for Lucid Puppy) was first released in April of 2010, and desktop version support hit end-of-life in May 2013. It's no longer being maintained.

Ubuntu Precise Pangolin (the base for Precise Puppy) was first released in April 2012, and will hit end-of-life in April 2017

Ubuntu Trusty Tahr (The base for Tahr Pup) was released in April 2014, and is scheduled to be supported till April 2019

Long story short... Lucid Puppy Linux (5.2.8.) is a downsized re-spin of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. Lucid Puppy is not being maintained or updated, because the underlying Ubuntu Lucid Lynx version is no longer being maintained or updated. The Puppy Linux home page http://puppylinux.com/ only lists Tahrpup (6.0.5) and Slacko Puppy (6.3.2) versions for download. Lucid Puppy (5.2.8) is obsolete.

I don't like saying this, but if your machine can't support Tahrpup or Slacko Puppy, you have a problem, in that you probably can't run any modern linux with a GUI. If you want to use a really old machine, you should be looking at minix 3 http://www.minix3.org/ or one of the *BSD variants. Linux is getting bloated. Even Linus admitted it... https://www.cnet.com/news/linus-torvald ... s-bloated/

Walter Dnes wrote:The mainline linux Pale Moon is still being built on CentOS 6

Note that this is ONLY for the 32-bit version as a stop-gap to maintain compatibility for older LTS distros that are still supported but are nearing EOL. Our 64-bit builds are already built on CentOS 7, and 32-bit will be as well in the future.

Walter Dnes wrote:Lucid Puppy is not being maintained or updated, because the underlying Ubuntu Lucid Lynx version is no longer being maintained or updated. The Puppy Linux home page http://puppylinux.com/ only lists Tahrpup (6.0.5) and Slacko Puppy (6.3.2) versions for download. Lucid Puppy (5.2.8) is obsolete.

It has never been Pale Moon's mission to maintain support for ancient, unsupported OS's or hardware. The fact that our official 32-bit builds work on Lucid and older glibc versions is simply coincidence. We are not striving for compatibility with unsupported software that old.

If you are unable or unwilling to update to a more recent, supported distro (there are plenty of lightweight distros out there that are newer and still supported), then you should either continue using the official binaries or compile Pale Moon yourself.

Puppy Linux is NOT a port of Ubuntu. It is constructed from scratch on a much different system. The above three versions are designed so they can use packages from Ubuntu versions as well as packages built specifically for Puppy.

There is also an official Slacko Puppy which uses Slackware packages. An AlphaOS that uses Arch Linux packages.Puppy Versions until around 2010 used only Puppy packages.

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (the base for Lucid Puppy) was first released in April of 2010, and desktop version support hit end-of-life in May 2013. It's no longer being maintained. Ubuntu Precise Pangolin (the base for Precise Puppy) was first released in April 2012, and will hit end-of-life in April 2017 Ubuntu Trusty Tahr (The base for Tahr Pup) was released in April 2014, and is scheduled to be supported till April 2019

Long story short... Lucid Puppy Linux (5.2.8.) is a downsized re-spin of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. Lucid Puppy is not being maintained or updated, because the underlying Ubuntu Lucid Lynx version is no longer being maintained or updated. The Puppy Linux home page http://puppylinux.com/ only lists Tahrpup (6.0.5) and Slacko Puppy (6.3.2) versions for download. Lucid Puppy (5.2.8) is obsolete."

The home page only lists official versions. There are plenty of unofficial versions, including updates of older versions of Puppy.

From the home page (which lists official Slacko and Tahr distributions):

"There are generally three broad categories of Puppy Linux distributions:

official Puppy Linux distributions → maintained by Puppy Linux team, usually targeted for general purpose, and generally built using Puppy Linux system builder (called Woof-CE).

woof-built Puppy Linux distributions → developed to suit specific needs and appearances, also targeted for general purpose, and built using Puppy Linux system builder (called Woof-CE) with some additional or modified packages.

unofficial derivatives (“puplets”) → are usually remasters (or remasters of remasters), made and maintained by Puppy Linux enthusiasts, usually targeted for specific purposes."

I have the UNOFFICIAL Lucid Puppy 5.2.8.7, which has been actively maintained since 2013 as an update of the official 5.2.8.6. Most recent version is Dec 16, 2016 (same as latest Pale Moon). glibc 2.11, gtk 2. It works with Pale Moon just as well as does Tahr Puppy,( except on a Pentium III because of the requirement for glibc 2.17 in SSE version). It has many devotees.

There are 40 pages of this discussion since July 2015. Very active development.

Lucid Puppy requires 512MB, Tahr 768MB. I prefer to use older laptops (with less RAM) because of the non-glossy non-wide screens, with resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 (better for text). They do everything I want, a bit slowly at times but I consider it worth the tradeoff.

"I checked with the developers. The mainline linux Pale Moon is still being built on CentOS 6, but they will be switching to CentOS 7 soon. Since I came on board relatively recently, I was told to start with CentOS 7 as the build platform, to avoid having to switch soon. CentOS 6 uses glibc 2.13, but apparently you can get away with 2.11.1, because it's close enough. CentOS 7, which I use for building Pale Moon, is a later release and uses later versions of glibc, gtk, etc."

I would greatly appreciate a build based on CentOS6. Does a CentOS7 build work better in some way? Perhaps you or someone could continue compiling at least an unofficial version with CentOS6, to be kind to users of older hardware, unless Pale Moon changes to the point where it needs a newer OS to compile with.

Puppy Linux is one of very fewrecent linuxes that still supports older hardware.

Tahr Puppy will actually run on my Pentium III (if I kill enough processes). But it does not support the older hardware as well (can't suspend to RAM, for instance).

Pale Moon and Seamonkey are the only browsers I have found which also support older hardware. Maybe the latest Seamonkey for linux has SSE support - they dropped it six versions ago for XP. I will go check.

I may also experiment with running Pale Moon in Lucid Puppy with glibc 2.17 in its own directory, with a script.We are warned not to update glibc system-wide because it could break something. I can try it anyway after backing up my system (one large file containing all changes and additions). Ubuntu must have a bug-fixed glibc 2.17.

"If you are unable or unwilling to update to a more recent, supported distro (there are plenty of lightweight distros out there that are newer and still supported), then you should either continue using the official binaries or compile Pale Moon yourself."

I agree that I should learn to compile for Puppy Linux. I have not found any better distros for Pentium III with 512MB RAM. Someone just steered me to a Debiandog (a small Debian made to look but not act like Puppy) but the author just quit early in 2016 (after acrimony in the forum) and the person who took it over provided the latest version only for 64-bit and it is twice as large. (OpenOffice by default, etc.)

Thank you for all the research and other time you have put into this discussion.

People have used Pale Moon since 2014 in Puppy Linux Precise 5.5 to 5.7 (probably glibc 2.11), Lighthouse 5.14, Slacko 5.7 . In 2014 someone complained you could not "disable SSE2 flag". I skipped 16 pages.

More recently, there's a link to "an interesting build by Walter Dnes, for those of you folks, with older P3 like CPUs - Pale Moon for Linux - SSE-only build".

Dec 14 posting:"I'm experiencing my first little setback with Palemoon. I've been using Palemoon for Linux optimized for Intel Atom CPUs from the very first and all the way to the latest release. It worked very well for me and I was happy. Starting with this 27.0 release, they no longer build Atom optimized variant for Linux. The mainline build on this machine is considerably slower and on some websites my font settings don't work the way they are supposed to. So I'm rolling back to the old and trusted version 26.5.0 (Atom). It's time to start thinking about building my own Palemoon optimized specifically for my machine."

So at least one person knows how to build a browser for Puppy Linux.

After I brought up the SSE only for glibc 2.17 problem an Italian Puppy user posted:

I use the version glibc tweaked in order to to use the latest NPAPI flashplayer plugin. Eathray in a recent thread pointed out that seamonkey 2.20 is more suitable for SSE only cpu. Where can I find the linux palemoon compiled for SSE?

I have tried glibc tweaked packages of the sse palemoon using both glibc 2.19 and 2.20 in puppy4 and lucid. Not success. Missing a working libstdc++.so.6. I have had success in precise and I share the following package for testing. WARNING: you should not use any plugin (flashplayer...) requiring sse2.